You know, it pisses me off when this happens.
I find a band that I love, and I exhaust their supply. I buy out their entire catalogue, digest their music, make it my own. I play it out and suck it dry, hours and hours with my goofy earcups on, bopping, air-guitarring, banging on imaginary drums, ignoring potential conversations with passersby. All for what? Another obsession to add to the pile? The answer is yes. So I'm all excited and really amped when I find out Broken Social Scene has a new disc coming out. It gets hyped in my mind beyond all recognizable standards of hyped-up-edness. I ostracize my friends with never-ending speculations of how "freakin' awesome it's gonna be" ... and then what? I'll tell you what happens because it always happens when I get so pumped. I pick up the new album, Broken Social Scene's third and latest LP, and what do I get? Anybody? Total vindication! That's what!
Yes, yes, boys and girls, it's happened again. Not how I'd feared it might, but much, much better. You may have never heard of Broken Social Scene, but if you haven't, then you definitely should think about hearing of them. Their newest album, in line with the traditions of old, is nothing short of quacktastic — that's a good thing, a real good thing. Billy Madison fans, you dig?
So Broken Social Scene's self-titled third album builds on the joint tradition established by its predecessors: 2001's all instrumental "Feel Good Lost" and 2002's epic "You Forgot It In People." The band itself is somewhat an anomaly: uhh Canadian, for one, but more, because it is comprised of a rotating array of 10-13 multi-instrumentalist talents drawn from other projects to create this hybridized rock-savvy engine of happy times.
The newest release is a tighter spin on "You Forgot It In People." Largely guitar driven, with anywhere from one to three kicking in at once and built on a consistent bass presence, "Broken Social Scene" is full-sounding. No gaps. Horns, electronic machinations, hard-to-pin-down drum sequences, whispers, shouts, squeals, the works. It's very tight.
Remnants of "Stars and Stripes" (YFIIP) ring true in "7/4 (Shoreline)", but the whole feel is elevated to a slightly more hectic pace of controlled chaos. The producers mess around with volume levels, the artists themselves cut out and reinsert with crackerjack timing. It's an excellent track, and it's been stuck in my head for days.
Always fans of a spacey prog vibe, the Scene will kick in some ambient interludes at various points, most notably on the aptly named "Finish Your Collapse and Stay for Breakfast".
Following shortly after is "Windsurfing Nation," the album's original title track and a chant-fueled full-body experience backed by another Broken Social Scene staple: percussion via clapping. New to the mix is the hip hop flavor introduced by rapper-friends-of-the-band K-os and Feist, which dances off the primary vocal tracks with surprising fluidity.
I could say something nice about every track, about the wacky but transient `80s sensation on "Bandwidth"; about the stadium anthem quality of "Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day)"; about the endless 10-minute migration that is the album's closer, "It's All Gonna Break." I could, but I won't. It's better if you do it yourself. Remember those good times you had with Levar Burton on "Reading Rainbow"? Right, well like he said, you don't have to take my word for it.
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